The end of THQ

Today an employee letter went out to everyone at THQ, from Brian Farrell and Jason Rubin:

January 23, 2013

To All THQ Employees:

We now have the answers we’ve been seeking through our financial restructuring and Chapter 11 case. While much will be written, here are the facts of the bids and auction that occurred:

Yesterday morning, we received a competing bid for the operating business, along with Clearlake’s offer, and numerous offers for separate assets. During an auction process that lasted over 22 hours, the final conclusion was that the separate-asset bids would net more than a single buyer for the majority of the company. Shortly, we will, present the results to the U.S. Bankruptcy Court, which must concur with our assessment.

The proposed sales of multiple assets is as follows :

Sega agreed to purchase Relic
Koch Media agreed to purchase Volition and Metro
Crytek agreed to purchase Homefront
Take 2 agreed purchase Evolve and
Ubisoft agreed to purchase Montreal and South Park
We expect these sales to close this week.

Some assets, including our publishing businesses and Vigil, along with some other intellectual properties are not included in the sale agreements. They will remain part of the Chapter 11 case. We will make every effort to find appropriate buyers, if possible.

What this means for employees

We expect that most employees of the entities included in the sale will be offered employment by the new owners. However, we cannot say what these owners may intend, and there will likely be some positions that will not be needed under the new ownership. You should receive notice this week or early next week if the new owners intend to extend employment to you. Please note that the terms of your new employment, including pay and benefits, may be different from the current terms of your employment with THQ.

If you are an employee of an entity that is not included in the sale, we regret that your position will end. A small number of our headquarters staff will continue to be employed by THQ beyond January 25 to assist with the transition. THQ has sufficient resources to pay these employees for work going forward, and we will be contacting these employees immediately to ensure their continued employment during this transition period. We are requesting the ability to offer certain severance pay to minimize disruption for employees of non-included entities as they determine the next steps in their careers.

We know you will have many questions about this news. We’ll be meeting tomorrow when we return to talk through this announcement and to answer any questions you have. You will receive a benefits fact sheet and FAQs with answers to some questions that may be on your mind. Please review these materials closely.

A personal note

THQ employees already packing up

The work that you all have done as part of the THQ family is imaginative, creative, artistic and highly valued by our loyal gamers. We are proud of what we have accomplished despite today’s outcome.It has been our privilege to work alongside the entire THQ team. While the company will cease to exist, we are heartened that the majority of our studios and games will continue under new ownership. We were hoping that the entire company would remain intact, but we expect to hear good news from each of the separate entities that will be operating as part of new organizations.

For those THQ employees who are part of entities that are not included in the sale, we are confident that the talent you have displayed as part of THQ will be recognized as you take the next steps in your career.

Thank you all for your dedication and for sharing your talent with the THQ team. We wish you the best of luck and hope you will keep in touch.

Sincerely,

Brian Farrell, Chief Executive Officer

Jason Rubin, President

Here’s what it means for games that were currently under development with THQ:

Company of Heroes 2 just went to SEGA. We’re not sure what this means for the team working on it yet.
Metro Last Light and Saints Row goes to Koch Media, parent company of Deep Silver, publishers of Dead Island
Homefront goes to Crytek
South Park: Stick of Truth goes to Ubisoft, as well as the THQ Montreal team
“Evolve” goes to Take 2
Seeing an entire publishing company be dissolved is not something that happens very often in the gaming industry. THQ is a name with a lot of memories and nostalgia for a great many gamers.

To Bobby, Sledge, and our other friends at THQ: Sorry guys Hang in there.

So no It's not just you, you're not a bad person, the company just wasn't all that well known and didn't really make anything noteworthy anyway. Except arguably Metro 2033.

The company was absolutely massive. If you didn't like their games, fine. If you didn't know them, fine. But to state they weren't well known when they covered so many big games in the past 2 decades, along with so many movie releases for more casual gamers?

Glad to see Volition was bought up, Saints Row series is great, and i think Red Faction could be great again with the proper support. And considering their new owners have games like Dead Island under their name im hopeful they are willing to let Saints Row keep being goofy and violent as heck.

Didnt see anything about Darksiders, which is a real shame, first one was a nice little game and the second one was pretty epic despite its obvious lack of polish.

I did not really care for THQ after WWE13. They ended up making people buy the DLC to play the online mode again. It was certainty a desperate attempt to get more money. People do like to trade in games. It's harder to do that when you make new users pay 20 bucks for the DLC. I just hope there are better games in the future.

"Metro Last Light and Saints Row goes to Koch Media, parent company of Deep Silver, publishers of Dead Island"

These are very bad news, last thing I want to see is Metro becoming a terrible console port on PC and ignorance to PC platform. Dead Island having microstutter issue since the release and they didn't even bothered to fix it, yet still making DLC's. Worst company ever.

On the good side, I hope new labels have more resources to develop more games. I'd love to see a new Homeworld or Warhammer game any soon.